After its outstanding debut last year, this second edition of the series BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS was expanded with live performances and an all-day screening commemorating Malcolm X´s birthday at the Hackesche Höfe Kino, in cooperation with AfricAvenir.
DECOLONIZING THE “COLD” WAR is the first Afropean performance showcase and was accompanied by roundtable discussions on the aesthetic legacy of the Black Power movement in the radical imagination of Diaspora artists. Parallel to this, its influence in liberation and decolonization struggles in the Global South during the so-called “Cold” War was approached from the continuities of coloniality. According to Enrique Dussel, a liberation philosopher and decolonial thinker, this war was never “cold” in the Global South.
We are witnessing a kind of global revivalism on documentary material on the Black Power movement (a good example is the release (2011) of Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, by Göran Olsson) and dozens of seminars and conferences are mushrooming all over Europe on the so called “Cold” War. In these hegemonic narratives the global South is usually considered as a mere recipient of Western imperialism.
During this festival, the story was told from the perspective of the self-affirmation of Black Power. The emblematic figure of Angela Davis created a planetary movement of solidarity that went beyond the term “Black Internationalism”. These narratives of re-existence were analyzed in relation to Frantz Fanon´s fundamental role in global South liberation struggles during that period. His interactions with Jean-Paul Sartre were the focus of some of these unprecedented debates. The worldwide solidarities resulting from the Black Power movement united people beyond racialization and political agendas. BE.BOP 2013 celebrated a paradigm shift that transformed the Black Body into a source of inspiration and beauty prevalent until today.
A Project of Art Labour Archives + Ballhaus Naunynstraße
In cooperation with AfricAvenir + Heinrich Böll Sitftung
Alanna Lockward + Curator
Walter Mignolo + Advisor
Artwell Cain (Netherlands+St. Vincent) + Vaginal Davis (Germany+USA) + Teresa María Díaz Nerio (Netherlands+Dominican Republic) + Gabriele Dietze (Germany) + Simmi Dullay (South Africa+Denmark) + Moritz Ege (Germany) + Jeannette Ehlers (Denmark+Trinidad) + Jihan El Tahri (Egypt+South Africa+France) + Cecilia Gärding (Sweden+South Africa) + Quinsy Gario (Netherlands+Curazao) + Adler Guerrier (USA+Haiti) + Neil Kenlock (England + Jamaica) + Grada Kilomba (Germany+Portugal+São Tomé e Principe) + Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi (Germany+Nigeria) + Raúl Moarquech Ferrera Balanquet (Cuba+Mexico+USA) + Karen McKinnon (England+USA) + Mekonnen Mesghena (Germany+Eritrea) + Dannys Montes de Oca (Cuba) + Ingrid Mwangi Robert Hutter (Germany+Kenya) + Pascale Obolo (France+Cameroon) + Horace Ové (England+Trinidad) + Robbie Shilliam (England) + Ovidiu Tichindeleanu (Rumania) + Caecilia Tripp (France+Germany) + Rolando Vázquez (Netherlands+Mexico)
Partners
Center for Global Studies and the Humanities + IDEA. Arts + Society
Transnational Decolonial Institute
Media Partners
AFROTAK TV cyberNomads + Reboot FM + Uprising Art + Afrikadaa
A Project of Art Labour Archives in collaboration with Allianz Kulturstiftung and Ballhaus Naunynstrasse
Alanna Lockward, Curator
José Manuel Barreto (England) /Manuela Boatca (Germany) / Artwell Cain(Holland) / Teresa María Díaz Nerio (Holland)/ Gabriele Dietze(Germany) / Simmi Dullay(South Africa) / Elvira Dyangani Ossé (Spain) /Jeannette Ehlers(Denmark) / Fatima El Tayeb(Germany) / Heide Fehrenbach(USA) / Quinsy Gario (Holland )/ Ylva Habel(Sweden) / Ulrike Hamann (Germany)/Grada Kilomba(Germany) / William Kentridge (South Africa)/ Michael Küppers-Adebisi(Germany)/ Rozena Maart(South Africa) / Tracey Moffatt(Australia) / IngridMwangiRobertHutter(Germany) / David Olusoga (England) / Minna Salami(England) /Robbie Shilliam(England) / Sumugan Sivanesan(Australia) / Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung(Germany) /Robert A. Stemmle † / Emeka Udemba(Germany) Rolando Vázquez(Holland)
Walter Mignolo, Advisor
BE.BOP 2012- BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS was the first international screening program and transdisciplinary roundtable centered on Black European citizenship in connection to recent moving image and performative practices. It was inaugurated at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, a translocal theatre space which serves as point of arrival for artists from (post) migrant communities and beyond, founded in 2008 by Shermin Langhoff with the support of Fatih Akin.
The framework of this meeting was circumscribed within decolonial theories which expose how the idea of citizenship is linked to current racializing configurations and hence with the limits of humanity. In that sense, the racial hierarchy of human existence, originating in the Renaissance and prescribed legally during the Enlightenment, established current (white-male-heteronormative-Christian-Western) European notions of who is Human and who is lower in that hierarchy, thereby designating citizenship, one of the most important legacies of modernity. The time-based positions discussed at this meeting were selected because they contest (racializing) fantasies on European citizenship.
By means of analyzing these narratives of re-existence, BE.BOP 2012 aimed at facilitating a long-term exchange between specialists in disciplines unrelated to visual arts and time-based art practitioners of different contexts of the Black European Diaspora. It successfully created multiple dialogues across the fields of history, legal studies, theatre, art and political activism.
This meeting was motivated and theoretically embedded to Decolonial Aesthetics and more specifically to Decolonial Diasporic Aesthetics, a term coined by curator, Alanna Lockward. In the spirit of the transformative and liberating qualities of performance art, this event was free and open to the public.
May 4-6, 2012
From 10:00 – 18:00
Free and open to the public
Ballhaus Naunynstrasse
Naunynstr. 27 / 10997 Berlin / + 49 (0) 30 75453725
presse@ballhausnaunynstrasse.de
Partners: Center for Global Studies and the Humanities at Duke University / DEFA Film Library / Digits Without Borders / Imagery Affairs / Goethe Institut / Goldsmiths University of London / Kwa-Zulu Natal Society of Arts / National Art Gallery of Namibia / Savvy Journal / Transational Decolonial Institute / The Bioscope Independent Cinema. Johannesburg / VideoArtWorld
Media Partners: AfricAvenir / AFROTAK TV cyberNomads / Exberliner / reboot.fm / Osvaldobudet.com
decolonial.institute(at)yahoo.com
© Alanna Lockward 2013
TDI+Transnational Decolonial Institute 